For the Love of Coffee

By Angie Johnson-Schmit

Odds are, you’ve enjoyed a great cup of coffee from Prescott Coffee Roasters. Some may remember Richard Gregory, owner of Prescott Coffee Roasters, from his years owning the coffee shop of the same name in Prescott, AZ. Many more have tasted his coffee at some of the best restaurants, coffee houses, bakeries, cafés, and churches in Yavapai County.

Gregory closed the retail shop in 2008, bought out his exwife’s share of the business, and shifted his focus to wholesale. Now he sells his coffee through Corvis Distributing, located in Prescott Valley, Arizona. Gregory still personally roasts his coffee beans in small batches onsite, but he likes his current arrangement. “In the past, they (Corvis Distributing) would be calling the customer and saying, 'What kind of cups and stuff do you need?' And then I would be calling the customer and saying, 'What kind of coffee do you need?' Now, it's one-stop shopping. The customer can order both at once and Corvis delivers all of it.”

While Gregory has always enjoyed a good cup of coffee, it wasn’t until he, his then-wife, and his brother decided to purchase the Prescott Coffee Roasters retail shop in 2006 that he started to really take it seriously. It was his brother who first saw the shop was was up for sale and approached Gregory about buying the business together. The trio decided to put their money together and buy the café.

The shop had a strong local following, and Prescott Coffee Roasters was already a favorite coffee spot for Gregory. He wanted to preserve what he loved about the café and did not want someone to “ruin it or make it worse, or just not where it was.” Gregory went on to say that “the only thing that we did when we bought it was strip the floor down and re-coat it.”

When he purchased the business, Gregory had been working as a police officer for 16 years. He quickly decided to leave law enforcement and concentrate on learning the coffee business.

Prior to taking on Prescott Coffee Roasters, Gregory admits that he was a cream and sugar coffee drinker. After being encouraged to try tasting black coffee, he started to understand the importance of tasting the actual coffee on its own.

Once he had to depend on his sense of taste to judge the coffee he roasted, he became a straight black coffee drinker. “When we decided to buy it (Prescott Coffee Roasters), I had to stop putting cream and sugar in the coffee,” he said. Gregory noted that once he started paying closer attention to what he was tasting, it also affected his taste in food. “I think that’s where I got maybe fussier about my food, or more appreciative,” he said.

As his sense of taste sharpened, so did his opinions on which coffee varieties he preferred. “It is a weird thing,” said Gregory. “Sometimes I'll get a coffee in that is really interesting, but I don't want to drink that as a whole cup.” He discovered that while he generally enjoys drinking pure Ethiopian varieties, straight Sumatra is too earthy for his taste. He is, however, a big fan of using Sumatra in coffee blends.

Gregory has an interesting approach to creating his blends. “I talk about coffee flavors as like a graph,” he said. He places varieties on that chart according to their flavor profiles. “Where you've got the low notes would be the Sumatras, the earthy thing,” he said.

“The Colombia that I have right now, the Fairtrade one, has some earthiness to it, which is fine. So that's your low notes, and then you’ve got nutty and chocolatey in the middle, and then your high notes would be the fruity floral stuff.”

His preference is for blends that have “a little bit of bass and high notes, but mostly I like a good solid “sweetness.”’ One of the things he discovered after cutting out sugar and cream in his coffee is that “you can actually taste sweetness in the cup if you're not putting stuff in it.” Gregory also likes “the interesting chocolates being predominant and then something to round it out,” comparing it to buying a high quality, expensive chocolate bar that lets you taste all the flavor notes.

“When we decided to buy it (Prescott Coffee Roasters), I had to stop putting cream and sugar in the coffee,” he said. Gregory noted that once he started paying closer attention to what he was tasting, it also affected his taste in food. “I think that’s where I got maybe fussier about my food, or more appreciative,” he said.

One thing Gregory cautions coffee buyers about is the tendency to save that expensive coffee. “Don't save your coffee,” he said. “If somebody gives you a pound of Coffee Roasters coffee, don't save it for a special occasion because it's going to go stale.” As he noted, even the best coffee beans start losing their complex flavor and scent almost immediately, so enjoy it while it is at its peak.

He also cautions high-end coffee buyers to make sure they are getting what they are paying for. Kona blends are especially notorious for having a very low amount of actual Kona coffee, so if you see an inexpensive bag of Kona, think twice. “The industry standard is 10% Kona, 90% something else,” said Gregory. “I think it's actually codified in Hawaii, if you put Kona on a label, it has to be at least 10%.”

The reason for this rule is because some grocery store brands were putting a tiny amount of actual Kona coffee beans in a blend and putting Kona on the label. Hawaii wanted to protect their coffee industry and set a legal standard to stop this practice. “Me being the way I am, I'm like, I'll do 20,” said Gregory. “So I do a 20% Kona blend.” He pointed out that it’s also important to use a reputable importer because of the number of counterfeit Kona coffees on the market. But, if you’re going to pay top dollar for coffee, it’s better to make sure you’re getting what you pay for.

Another aspect of coffee bean purchasing Gregory believes is important is the organic certification required to legitimately call coffee organic. That certification is expensive and time consuming, but Gregory feels it is important to follow the process.

“It costs me $1,700, like it does every year. I go through a ton of record keeping. I have to do things a certain way to keep that cert,” he said.

Those processes include storing the certified organic coffee separate from the conventional ones. “It can be annoying,” Gregory admitted. “But if I was selling coffee saying, ‘it's Fair Trade and organic,’ but not supporting the organic system that was helping me sell that coffee, being a law enforcement person, I wouldn’t do that. If you want to benefit from selling organic, then you should play the game completely.”

Gregory also supports Fair Trade certification for his coffee. A Fair Trade-certified coffee means that the coffee has been audited throughout the supply chain to meet certain sustainability and labor standards. “Fair Trade is kind of a big program that has almost like a government layer to it,” said Gregory. “It has to administer this and figure out what is fair in Ethiopia, Peru, and Colombia. So, they're not perfect, but I don't have the time and money to visit all these places and figure out what's right so I'm trusting them.”

It’s been a long journey from that first cup of unadulterated coffee at someone else’s Prescott Coffee Roasters to his weekly pursuit of the perfect roast. But Gregory feels a connection to his coffee and to the community that enjoys it. As one local restaurant owner told him, “I want to sell coffee that I would drink myself.” Gregory responded, “You and me both.”

WANT TO TRY A CUP OF PRESCOTT COFFEE ROASTERS COFFEE?

YOUR CHOICES INCLUDE:

Prescott:

Cuppers Coffee House • El Gato Azul • Farm Provisions The Dinner Bell • Pangea Bakery • Outlaw Donuts Frozen Frannie’s • Triple Creek Kitchen and Spirits Talking Rock Master-Planned Community • The Local Gripstone Climbing & Café • Wing Space Coworking Joe Mudd’s Coffee and Bakehouse • Raven Café

Prescott Valley:

Carlitos Café and Coffee House • The Local Grab N Go

Chino Valley:

Heidi Lane Café

Cottonwood:

Crema Craft Kitchen • The Old Town Cafe • Pizzeria Bocce

Sedona:

Geraldo’s Italian Kitchen • Rocky Road Ice Cream Company